Best Bank in the world - BNM

Ni kalau buat IPO ni mesti laku giler...Sounds funny tapi believe it or not Federal Reserve is a private institution! So tak impossible kalau one fine day, BNM akan buat IPO.

Baru jer puji kejap tadi, dah keluar regulation baru to further strengthen the management of the greatest banking system regulator in the world. Baca kat sini...

We Malaysian can sleep tight at night because these people really know what they are doing.Imagine, in other economies, products like sub-prime loan can enter the market without any scrutiny, but not here. I dont know about you guys but some bankers approached me for the sub-prime products since my email is registered in the US. The conditions were ridiculuous, and yet nobody (Greenspan, Bernanke, Friedman, Krugman all the so called expert with loads of free advises spitted globally especially to the third world countries, all of them were quiet) did anything about it until it exploded.They didnt see it coming, that made me wonder how I did!

Bukan macam pakar ekonomi yang sorang tu asyik quote Michel Camdessus, Wolfensohn, kalau tak pun Wolfowitz. These people are the real thing, they have the knowledge, originality, perfect view of the scenarios & integrity. Just make sure succession plan is well in place. Just dont be like politics, when Mahathir resign, everything gone hay wire...

Malaysia Boleh!

Bank Negara really had learned it!

They left the benchmark rate unchanged for I-dont-know-how-long! Actually there are a lot of other ways to manage money flow in and out of economy. We dont really depend on the interest rate alone. If you listen to the Monetarists, of course throwing away the interest rate knobs will be a heresy. But, in some other economies they are living without it and they are prospering!!!I got the feeling that Bank Negara is trying to be less dependant on the interest rate mechanism so that the economy can be less vulnerable to the volatility.

Fundamentally, do we need to raise the rates to get money in (In the first place, do we need the money in?)? I believe 300 billion in the system from the EPF alone is enough to ensure liquidity. But there are other factors like return potential, investment effectiveness, strong currency, strong economic management, political stability etc that can keep the money coming in.The interest rate is just a mean, there are some other ways that can keep the economy prosperous. Last time pensioner complaining that low interest rates can be destructive to their income stream, but nowadays with some other hedging instruments like options, and more currency fund available had produced good results even if they put their money in unit trust, but of course they have to pick the right manager.

We should learn from Japan (which I believe Madam Governor already did) on how they keep the rates low and still prosper! Obviously there are other options rather than the monetarist way!Pump priming perhaps might create back lash politically, but if I were the private sector, investing in the down turn will be the best opportunity which Buffet will take less than 10 days to decide! Perhaps we can learn something from the socialist...

The value of 2 hours a day....

I got this calculation when I was a student. Then I did a partime job for 2 hrs daily, cash registering in a convenient store in Japan.That 2 hrs daily's wage end up more than a thousand ringgit a month and more than 10 thousand ringgit that year, that was in 1994!

I am not going to write about money this time, but about something worth more than money, thing that money cant buy. I am talking about "time". What 2 hours a day can be over a life time?

Imagine if we watch TV for 2 hours a day, how big can the time snow ball into during a life time? Lets see, 2 hrs x 30 days = 60hrs/month. Equivalent 2.5 days/month, multiply with 12 months = 30days. That means if you watch 2 hours of TV everyday, annually you are watching a solid 30 days/month!!! So annually you are only living for 11 months! Say you start watching TV when you are 4 years old and your dead at 64, means you live watching TV for 2 hours a day for 60 years. So just now for every year, you lose 1 month, so for every 60 years, you will lose 60 months = 5 years.
So conclusion is, if you watch TV for 2 hours a day for 60 years, you are spending 5 solid years watching TV! What do you think?

The issue is not just about TV but more of wasting little time, so to speak, but in a life time, you will see the snow ball is so damn huge! If we can sleep 2 hours shorter (8-6), if we can travel 2 hours/daily faster or perhaps we can eliminate travelling time, or
if we can eliminate waiting time, just 2 hours a day, then perhaps we can live our life longer by 5 years!

Mission Accomplished

It has been a long time since I last wrote here, and today as the icing on the cake, I've just got the extremely good news. One of my mission in organizing our 2008OBW is to at least improve one life of our peers have been achieved. We were not going there just to huha-huha, brag about our achievements, recites some glorious moments and then go home. No benefit at all! That was not my aspiration. I wished I could go there, gather old friends and some of us who were doing well to help those who were not doing so well, so that as a batch we can see more of us enjoying a good life.

Since the day we got our SPM result, I always felt bad about not being able to help our friends who had lost focus on life, life as a student. Especially to those who were close to me, whom had spent some growing pain years together. And today those guilt finally dissappear.

One of our friends, who did badly at his younger stage of life had achieved something that only he can dream of months earlier. From making a 3 figures salary 4 months ago, now he is enjoying 5 figures profits from his own business. And that was the fruit of our gathering, he told me! From the bottom of my heart, I wish him congratulations, and may his success inspire others.

We had had a good dinner, I hope we had inspired the wind orchestra boys. We had arranged for rugby & hockey jerseys sponsorship, hope that also inspired the boys the way Heluzaid inspired me to do all these as well as the Pak Chat Rugger U15 Challenge trophy and with this achievement, I believe we have achieved the hardest goal of organizing an oldboy weekend, which is to inspire peers achieving a better life. I hope we will always supporting and continuously inspiring each other in whatever fields and dimensions that we as human beings have to succeed. Looking forward to see all of u again at Reunion@40 of course in better shape.

Wassalam.

Swine Flu: Latest from CDC, USA.

Get your latest info on this pandemic.

Champion of the inaugural UTP Inter School English Debate

The STAR debate team became the first champion of the University Teknologi Petronas school debating championship, another debate tournament open to all schools in Malaysia.

Semi final : Beat MCKK
Final : Beat SMK COnvent Ipoh
Congratulations again to them

Azrul Izzam

ASMARADANA...

Enjoy!!!